Take the Cure
by lateVMlover
Summary: This is a short one-shot. It focuses on what may have been going on inside Damon's head in episode 4x13. Why couldn't he face Elena when she asked him to take the cure? What was he thinking? Thinking about that was too tantalizing, so I wrote this. It's the scene plus his thoughts.


**Set during the scene from 4x13 "Into the Wild" where Damon reveals his true thoughts about the cure. It was a compelling scene, and I love Damon's so expressive face. I wanted to write a one-shot about what was going through his head. I hope you like it! None of the dialogue is mine. Only everything else.**

"Take the Cure"

"And you wonder why Bonnie hates you!" Elena said in frustration.

Once again he was being taken to task for his actions. It didn't matter how many times Bonnie betrayed them or hurt Damon. It only mattered that Damon behave like a good little vamp. Don't step out of line. Don't rock the boat. Don't be mean to Elena's friends. He had had Elena so very briefly, and he could already feel her slipping away. Anger at the unfairness of it all, the injustice, filled him and he turned toward her. His bitterness finally spilling out.

"No, Elena, I don't wonder about Bonnie. Because I don't care about her! I don't care about this lame ass cure for vampires either!" he informed her with a bitter edge. He was tired of pretending. Tired of his feelings not mattering. He was going to lose her one way or another. Either to Stefan or mortality. It didn't matter. She wasn't ever going to be his. Not truly.

"How can you say that?" she asked, the hurt in her voice pierced him. She looked at him with disappointment.

Damon was tired of her disappointment, tired of never being enough. It was time to tell her the truth. "Because I don't want you to be cured," he revealed, finally.

"I'm not fighting with you about this, Damon. Being human isn't going to change my feelings for you," Elena promised.

He wanted to believe her. He wanted it more than he had wanted anything in so very long. Kissing her and making love to her had been his greatest fantasy. But more than her body, he had wanted her to love him. He had wanted her to look at him the way she had Stefan. He had wanted the devotion and loyalty and faith she reserved for Stefan. He wanted her love. No, he _craved _it more than blood. It was the only reason he was on this ridiculous trip. He had to know if her feelings were real. Breaking the sire bond was the only way to know the truth. The only way to silence his doubts.

"I wish I could believe that, Elena. But say you're right. Say you take the cure and become human again and you still love me. Then what? You grow old and die, and I stay a vampire. Face reality, Elena. We don't work," Damon said. It killed him to voice it, but deep inside it's what he believed. He had loved Katherine so blindly and for so long, but she hadn't been who he thought she was. Nor had she cared at all for him. Elena was who he always thought Katherine really was and so much more. She saw good in him when no one else did, not even himself. She had faith in him when his brother gave up. She found reasons to forgive him over and over. Her goodness and compassion drew him in. He had been content just to be in her life. But now that he had possessed her, now that he knew what it was to have her love, he couldn't settle for anything but all of her.

"Things aren't easy, and you're just going to push me away?" she asked in disbelief. "That's what you do, Damon. You sabotage yourself. You think you don't deserve something so you ruin it."

Damon stared wordlessly at her. Didn't she know that he wanted her to fight for him? Didn't she get that he wanted her to be the one to chase after him for once? To love him no matter what? He knew that he didn't deserve her. He never would. But he still wanted her. He wanted her to love him anyway. Damon believed that was what love was about. You loved the person no matter what. They couldn't ruin the love because it was strong and enduring and unbreakable. But here Elena was already talking about him trying to sabotage things. If she loved him the way he loved her, there would be no way he could sabotage this. The harshness of that reality pierced him. There was no version of her that he wouldn't love. Human. Vampire. It didn't matter. But for her, he was never enough. She was always trying to change him. To admonish him to do better, be better. To manipulate him with guilt.

"I'm not going to let you pull that this time, Damon!" she insisted as he turned to walk away. He was done trying to convince her to love him. But her next words stopped him in his tracks. "Take the cure with me!" she shouted.

Damon couldn't believe she asked him that. He was unable to turn and face her. He might give in. It was almost impossible for him to say no to her, to hurt her. She continued, "That's how much I know this is real. That's how certain I am that I'm going to love you even after this is all over."

Finally, the words Damon wanted to hear from her. For one brief moment, joy raced through him. She loved him! She did!

"Take the cure. Be human with me," she begged. "We can grow old together. It doesn't have to be hard anymore."

Damon still couldn't face her. Fear hit him, replacing his joy. Be human? Risk her rejection and be stuck with only his humanity, his mortality as cold comfort? Right now it could just be her sire bond talking. He knew that Elena cared for him. She had before she became a vampire, but sometimes it felt like it was because he was there. He was reliable. When Stefan hurt her, it was Damon she turned to. But was Damon who she really wanted? Deep in her soul, was it Damon she wanted to grow old with? For some reason, Damon had trouble envisioning that.

He finally responded. "That's not me Elena. That's Stefan," he said bitterly, not facing her. The life she wanted, the life she was fighting desperately to have wasn't a life with him. She had ended an entire line of vampires to get this cure, to get back her humanity. To get back her mortality. She would die and leave him. Once upon a time, he would've fit into her human life. He would've been the man she wanted. But that man was gone. He had been gone for a long time. So long he barely remembered the man he was.

"You know I used to miss being human," he confessed, still unable to turn around, to face her with his rejection. He used to miss the dream he had of fathering children, of teaching them to throw a football, to fish or hunt. He used to wish his life wasn't driven by hunger. Hunger for blood, for excitement, and danger. Now, though, he relished in the power he had as a vampire. When he was human, he had tried so hard for his father's approval. He had even enlisted in a war he didn't believe in. However, it was all in vain. He hadn't ever been good enough for his dad either. At least as a vampire the sting of never being enough was dampened by the many perks.

"But now I can't think of anything more miserable on earth," he said honestly. Then he walked away from her. The pain he felt was because of his humanity. As a vampire, he could escape the pain if he chose. He could turn it off. He could be so much more than ordinary. Didn't she see that? If he had been human when Katherine had betrayed him, it would have destroyed him. He would've never loved or trusted another. His sensitive soul would have been damaged beyond repair. The pain of knowing he had remained so devoted to a woman for over a hundred years that didn't love him was only bearable because he could chose to ignore the pain, to not feel it. And now Elena wants him to give that up? To go back to being mortal? To go back to being so weak and pathetic? How could she ask that of him? Didn't she know him at all?

As a vampire, he could aspire to all the heights and depths life and love offered. He didn't turn back to see how Elena was reacting to his words. He couldn't give in. He couldn't be human again. Be weak. Be vulnerable. Never again. If she truly loved him the way he loved her, a mere fifty or sixty years together wouldn't be enough. Not nearly enough. She'd want to spend eternity with him. If she loved him enough, she'd want to be a vampire so that they could always be together.

Realization filled Damon like a crushing blow. The sire bond took her affection for him and twisted it into something more. If she truly loved him, then the cure would not be something she'd be fighting so hard to find. It wouldn't matter what her friends said, what her brother said. It would only matter that they were together.

She didn't love him. Not enough.

Damon decided then that he'd get her the cure. It would be his last gift to her. His last selfless act. She would take it and the truth would be out. Then he could walk away. He find away to live his eternity without her love, her laughter, her beauty.

He walked further away and stopped. He glanced back at where she had been standing. She was still there watching him walk away. Damn her! Damn him! A part of him clung desperately to the hope that maybe, just maybe she did. Maybe she did truly love him. Maybe she was just too young to think about eternity as a vampire. He knew how betrayed he'd felt when Stefan had forced the choice on him. The rage and hatred he'd felt for Stefan had consumed him. Could he really blame Elena for wanting to hang on a little longer to being human?

For one long moment, he stared at her. Then he realized something. He did blame her. He blamed her for not picking him the day Rebekah forced her and Matt off that bridge. He blamed her for telling him _It's Stefan. It's always going to be Stefan._ Those words were like an echo in his head even now. A refrain that was never completely silent. Just two days ago even Klaus had echoed the words to him. And Damon could tell that Klaus didn't say it just to hurt him, but that he really believed it. He believed that Stefan was the better man. That she would inevitably pick Stefan. It didn't matter how many headless corpse Stefan had left behind over the years. Because Stefan wore his guilt like a cloak, he was deemed more worthy, better. Hell, even Damon thought that most of the time.

Damon loved his brother. If Elena was going to be human, he'd walk away from her rather than risk losing his brother. He only risked it now because she was a vampire. He'd have her forever. It wouldn't matter then if Stefan never forgave him. However, he hadn't stolen Elena, and the constant implication that he had really pissed him off. He had become worthy of her. It was as simple as that. And if she became human again and loved him still, he was going to make everyone of her so called friends apologized to him. Stefan would be the first.

Take the cure? Hell, no! He'd get the cure for her, break her sire bond, and find out the truth. If she didn't love him, he'd survive the disappointment. It wouldn't be the first time.

*****_*The End*******_

_I got tired of shouting this kind of stuff in my head every week that I see a Damon scene. We love Damon, so we want Elena for him. But don't you just sometimes want to hug the poor unloved vampire? Don't you wish they could hear what you scream at the TV? Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated. This is my first solely Vampire Diaries tale, so I hope you liked it (am currently doing a VD crossover). I wanted to do one for either Damon or Klaus and decided this scene was too good to pass up! Thanks for reading._


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